E.S.  Buchanan 


J     The  Early  Revisers  of  the 
%  Gospel 


Z*  \ 


mm 


li: 


BS2385 
.B896 


^ibm(c 


The  Early  Revisers  of  the 
Gospel 


E.  S.  BUCHANAN,  M.A.,  B.Sc, 

Editor  of 

OXFORD  OLD-LATIN   BIBLICAL   TEXTS.   Nos.  V  and  VI; 

SACRED   LATIN  TEXTS.  Nos.  I.  H  and  III; 

THE   RECORDS   UNROLLED; 

AN   ENGLISH   VERSION   OF   THE   IRISH   GOSPELS; 

THE   SEARCH  FOR   THE  ORIGINAL   WORDS   OF   THE  GOSPEL; 

A   NEW  TEXT  OF  THE   APOCALYPSE   FROM   SPAIN,  etc. 


Delivered  at 

DREW  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

Madison,  New  Jersey 
December  1,  1915 


Copyright  1915 
E.  S.  BUCHANAN 


Copies  of  this  The  Early  Revisers  of  the  Gospel  may  be 
obtained  from  the  Paget  Literary  Agency,  25  W.  45th  St., 
New  York.  Price,  25  cents  post  paid.  Remittance  to  be 
sent  with  order. 


By  the  same  writer. 

The  Search  for  the  Original  Words  of  the  Gospel:  A  lecture 
deHvered  at  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  Decem- 
ber 3d,  1914.  Paget  Literary  Agency.  Price,  25  cents  post 
paid. 

A  New  Text  of  the  Apocalypse  from  Spairt:  A  translation 
from  the  Latin  Text  of  the  J.  P.  Morgan  MS.  of  the  eighth 
century  Commentary  of  the  Spanish  Presbyter  Beatus. 
Paget  Literary  Agency.     Price,  50  cents  post  paid. 

Christ's  Teaching  on  Divorce  According  to  the  Earliest  MSS. 
Paget  Literary  Agency.     Price,  25  cents  post  paid. 


The  Early   Revisers    of  the   Gospel 

A  Lecture  by  E.  S.  Buchanan,  M.A.,  B.Sc, 

at 

DREW  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

Madison,  New  Jersey 
December  1,  1915. 

Dr.  H.  a.  Buttz,  Emeritus  President,  took  the  chair 
at  4  p.m. 

Dr.  F.  Watson  Hannan  opened  with  prayer. 

Dr.  H.  A.  Buttz  :  The  President  is  unable  to  be  here 
to  present  in  person  the  lecturer  of  the  afternoon,  and 
has  assigned  that  privilege  to  me.  It  is  a  great  priv- 
ilege to  welcome  those  who  do  so  much  to  advance  the 
interests  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  subject  on 
which  the  lecturer  today  is  to  speak  is  one  of  the 
iitmost  importance,  and  has  taxed  the  skill  and  wis- 
dom of  scholars  throughout  the  centuries,  namely,  the 
attempt  to  get  back  to  the  first  words,  the  original 
documents,  the  words  spoken  by  Christ  and  His  Apos- 
tles, so  that  we  may  know  exactly  what  has  been 

3 


written — may  know  that  they  are,  indeed,  the  words 
of  sacred  truth.  Mr.  Buchanan  comes  to  us  after  a 
thorough  study  of  these  important  subjects.  He  is 
a  specialist  in  this  great  department;  and  it  affords 
me  pleasure  to  welcome  Mr.  E.  S.  Buchanan,  Master 
of  Arts,  and  Editor  of  the  Oxford  Old-Latin  Biblical 
Texts:  Nos.  V  and  VI,  who  will  address  you  now. 

Mr.  Buchanan:  Dr.  Buttz,  Ladies — I  am  glad  to 
see  some  ladies  here — and  Gentlemen :  it  is  with  great 
pleasure  that  I  speak  to  you  this  afternoon  about  a 
subject  which — as  has  been  said — is  of  vital  import- 
ance to  each  one  of  us,  and  not  only  to  each  one  of  us, 
but  also  to  those  whom  we  know  and  those  whom  we 
love,  to  those  who  live  in  this  great  country  as  well  as 
to  those  who  live  in  the  Old  World,  whose  past  records 
I  have  had  a  better  opportunity  of  studying  than  most 
of  you  here. 

The  subject  I  wish  to  speak  about  this  afternoon  is 
the  Early  Revisers  of  the  Gospel.  We  have  all  of  us 
the  printed  Bible.  I  hope  that  you  use  the  King 
James'  Version  rather  than  the  Revised  Version,  be- 
cause, after  eighteen  years'  research  among  manu- 
scripts, I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  King 
James'  Version  is  a  much  more  trustworthy  Version, 
both  in  its  original  text,  and  in  its  translation,  than 
the  Revised  Version,  which  was  put  out  in  1881  from 
the  Jerusalem  Chamber  at  Westminster. 

The  text  of  our  King  James'  Version  is  practically 
that  of  the  first  printed  Greek  Testament  of  Erasmus, 


4«^ 


issued  in  the  j^ear  1516.  Erasmus  used  a  Greek  manu- 
script of  the  12th  century,  he  tells  us,  but  he  believed 
that  that  manuscript  took  him  back  to  apostolic  times. 
He  thought  that  in  that  manuscript  he  had  practically 
the  words  as  they  left  the  lips  of  the  inspired  evan- 
gelists. 

The  Received  text  so  called  was  in  all  important 
particulars  the  text  issued  by  Erasmus  in  1516;  and 
the  Received  text  continued  to  be  in  vogue  and  con- 
tinued to  be  accepted  until  the  text  of  Lachmann  in 
1831,  when  its  supremacy  was  first  really  challenged. 

Tischendorf  followed  up  the  work  of  Lachmann, 
and  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  discover  an  ancient 
Greek  manuscript  at  Mount  Sinai,  which  is  now 
known  to  scholars  as  the  Codex  Sinaiticus.  He  said 
that  he  would  rather  have  discovered  that  manuscript 
than  the  Koh-i-noor  diamond,  and  he  proceeded  to 
bring  out  a  very  beautiful  edition  of  his  discovery. 
This  he  was  able  to  do  because  he  succeeded  in  ob- 
taining the  Tsar  of  Russia  as  his  patron,  and  the  manu- 
script is  now  lodged  in  the  royal  library  at  St.  Peters- 
burg. Tischendorf  almost  worshipped  this  one  single 
manuscript.  He  was  inclined  to  believe  that  even  its 
eccentricities  were  excellencies;  and  even  where  it 
opposed  all  other  existing  authorities  he  often  followed 
its  reading. 

Doctors  Westcott  and  Hort,  in  England,  drank 
deeply  of  the  subjective  spirit  of  Tischendorf,  with 
the  result  that  they   likewise — and   like  foolishly — 

5 


established  a  single  manuscript,  the  Codex  Vaticanus, 
which  I  have  seen  in  Rome  in  the  Vatican  Library — 
a  sister  manuscript  to  the  Codex  Sinaiticus — as  their 
practically  infallible  guide. 

Dr.  Hort  believed  that  a  text  which  had  the  sup- 
port of  the  Codex  Sinaiticus  and  the  Codex  Vaticanus 
was  the  same  text  as  the  apostolic  autographs.  He 
tells  us  that  the  text  of  Aleph  and  B  (that  is,  of  Codex 
Sinaiticus  and  Codex  Vaticanus),  when  they  agree, 
gives  us  "a  true  approximate  reproduction  of  the 
text  of  the  autographs" — let  me  repeat  his  very  words, 
a  true  approximate  reproduction  of  the  text  of  the 
autographs.  The  majority  of  the  Revisers  of  our 
English  Bible  believed  in  the  words  of  Drs.  Westcott 
and  Hort,  and  they  were  each  furnished  beforehand 
with  a  copy  of  the  new  text  as  edited  by  the  two  Eng- 
lish University  of  Cambridge  Professors,  and  hence 
our  Revised  Version  follows  in  the  main  this  new 
text  of  Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort,  which  has  been  sent 
forth  to  all  the  English-speaking  countries  of  the  world 
as  the  last  result  of  scientific  Bible  criticism. 

Now,  what  is  the  character  of  these  two  manu- 
scripts, the  Codex  Sinaiticus  and  the  Codex  Vaticanus, 
and  what  is  their  age?  I  have  seen  the  Codex  Vat- 
icanus, and  I  have  seen  a  photographic  edition  of  the 
Codex  Sinaiticus,  and  after  having  personally  viewed 
and  personally  handled  48  out  of  50  of  the  oldest  manu- 
scripts of  the  Bible  in  the  world,  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  the  world,  I  should  place  the  date  of  the  copy- 


6 


ing  of  those  two  manuscripts — Tischendorf  tells  us 
they  were  both  in  part  copied  by  the  same  scribe — 
between  the  years  360  A.D.  and  420  A.D.  That  is 
the  date  when  they  were  copied.  They  show  a  sinister 
agreement  with  the  text  which  St.  Jerome  issued,  the 
Roman  Vulgate,  in  the  year  382 ;  and,  therefore,  I  am 
compelled  to  place  their  production  close  to  the 
year  382. 

The  Lord's  Prayer  in  the  Vulgate  in  St.  Luke 
exactly  agrees  with  the  Lord's  prayer  in  Codex  B 
(that  is  the  Codex  Vaticanus)  in  St.  Luke: 

Father,  hallowed  be  thy  name; 

Thy  kingdom  come; 

Give  us  today  our  daily  bread ; 

And  forgive  us  our  sins;  for  we  also  forgive  every 
one  indebted  to  us; 

And  lead  us  not  into  temptation. 

The  rest  is  omitted,  and  entirely  omitted  only  by 
Codex  B  among  Greek  manuscripts.  The  Sinaitic 
manuscript  omits  also  part  of  what  is  omitted  by 
Codex  B,  but  it  does  not  omit  the  whole.  The  only 
complete  agreement  is  on  the  part  of  Codex  B  and 
the  Vulgate. 

We  thus  reach  the  year  382,  when  the  great  revi- 
sion took  place  at  Rome  of  the  current  text  of  the 
Gospels.  Fortunately  we  have  an  account  of  this 
revision  by  the  reviser  himself,  who  was  a  single 
individual,  not  a  company  of  men  but  a  single  indiv- 
idual, St.  Jerome.    We  are  thus  on  sure  ground,  and 


are  not  building  a  theory  of  revision  on  an  imaginary 
foundation.  We  have  St.  Jerome's  own  account  of 
the  conditions  under  which  he  began  his  work,  and 
the  end  which  he  set  before  him. 

He  tells  us  there  was  a  sad  chaos  in  the  text  of 
all  Latin  manuscripts.  There  were  as  many  texts  as 
manuscripts;  and,  therefore,  to  end  this  diversity  he 
had  appealed,  he  said,  to  "the  Greek  truth."  Now, 
we  find  that  "the  Greek  truth"  he  appealed  to  was 
the  text  of  the  New  Testament  as  edited  by  Origen; 
for  St.  Jerome  was  a  slavish  follower  of  the  great 
Alexandrian  teacher  Origen,  and  what  Jerome  did 
was  to  make  a  Latin  edition  of  the  Gospels  that  agreed 
with  the  third  century  Greek  edition  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament which  had  the  support  and  the  prestige  of 
Origen. 

Origen  was  born  in  the  year  185  and  died  in  the 
year  253.  He  was  the  glory  of  the  catechetical  school 
of  Alexandria.  He  lectured  for  forty  years  on  The- 
ology and  Philosophy.  It  is  said  that  he  was  the 
author  of  6,000  books,  which  far  exceeds  the  output 
of  the  most  prolific  of  our  modern  Professors.  He 
never  wore  any  shoes  or  boots.  I  have  not  yet  found 
out  for  what  reason.  He  was  a  vegetarian,  and  his 
belief  in  celibacy  led  him  to  practise  the  most  extreme 
ascetiscism. 

Origen,  who  was  deeply  versed  in  the  writing  of 
Plato,  believed  with  Plato  in  the  pre-existence  of  the 
soul. 


g 


Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting: 

The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting,  and  cometh  from 
afar  ; 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness  and  not  in  utter  naked- 
ness. 

But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God,  Who  is  our  home. 

Wordsworth  has  expressed  this  belief  of  Plato  in 
these  imperishable  words ;  and  this  belief  among  others 
was  adopted  as  part  of  his  theology  as  well  as  philos- 
ophy by  the  great  Origen, 

Origen  also  investigated  the  depths  of  the  mystery 
of  the  Trinity,  and  was  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
Son  of  God  was  subordinate  to  the  Father,  and, 
further,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  subordinate  to  the 
Son.  Alexandria  encouraged  speculation,  and  all  the 
Gnostic  errors  and  Arian  heresies  which  troubled  the 
early  Church  found  a  fertile  soil  for  their  growth  in 
Alexandria. 

We  must  remember  that  the  Christian  Gospel  came 
into  the  world  to  meet  hostile  forces.  As  long  as  men 
looked  upon  Christianity  as  a  new  philosophy,  they 
were  ready  to  give  it  a  place  in  their  system  and 
their  speculations.  As  long  as  they  looked  upon 
Jesus  Christ  as  merely  adding  another  to  their  al- 
ready long  list  of  deities  they  were  quite  willing  to 
receive  the  Christian  teaching  with  complacency,  if 
not  with  actual  favor.     But  when  St.  Paul  and  St. 


John  and  those  who  followed  their  teaching,  preached 
Jesus  Christ  as  "the  true  God,"  when  they  preached 
that  He  was  "God  over  all,  blessed  for  ever,"  that  was 
a  teaching  which  encountered  then,  as  it  encounters 
today,  from  philosophers  and  scientists  as  well  as  from 
Jewish  catechists,  a  strong  and  often  bitter  hostility. 
The  conditions  of  the  modern  world,  in  which  we 
live,  are  reproducing  in  many  essentials  the  conditions 
of  the  first  ages.  We  have  allowed  philosophy,  and 
we  have  allowed  science,  to  take  the  supreme  place  in 
our  programme  of  instruction  both  in  our  schools  and 
in  our  colleges.  When  I  was  a  boy  I  was  taught  by 
my  father  the  three  R's,  Latin  and  Greek,  the  Bible, 
and  I  think  that  was  all  that  was  regarded  as  of  any 
great  value.  Nowadays  instead  of  this  we  are  taught 
science  and  philosophy  and  psychology  and  other 
ologies,  which  it  would  take  me  too  long  to  enumerate 
one  by  one.  The  result  is  that  there  is  in  the  world 
a  paralyzing  confusion  of  thought.  In  England,  our 
scientists,  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  have  set  themselves 
up  as  teachers  of  divinity.  I  cannot  say  it  is  very 
good  divinity,  but  it  imposes  on  a  great  many  people 
who  have  not  had  an  opportunity  to  study  the  true 
and  historic  divinity ;  whilst  our  theologians  have  more 
or  less  gone  over  to  the  camp  of  the  rationalists  and 
the  scientists;  and  there  is  a  strong  current  running 
in  England  today,  which  depreciates,  and  not  only 
depreciates,  but  endeavors  to  change  and  deface  the 
record  of  the  supernatural  and  miraculous  acts  of  the 
Son  of  God. 

10 


Christianity  is  meeting  again,  as  it  did  in  the  early- 
centuries,  the  full  force  of  philosophy  and  the  full 
force  of  rationalism,  both  of  which  it  has  always  re- 
sisted by  the  power  of  God's  Holy  Spirit  and  by  the 
help  He  gave  to  the  early  Christian  teachers;  and  we 
can  still  only  meet  the  opposition  that  every  one  of 
us  has  to  face,  by  a  renewed  study  of  Scripture  itself, 
and  by  the  help  of  that  same  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  Who, 
first  of  all,  enlightens  our  own  hearts,  and  then  in- 
structs us  what  we  ought  to  believe  and  what  we 
ought  to  teach. 

Those  of  you  who  are  students  of  Textual  Criticism 
know  that  we  have  set  before  us  today  really  three 
forms  of  the  Gospel  text,  each  form  claiming  to  be  the 
true  and  authentic  one: 

(1)  The  Received  text,  consecrated  by  long  usage. 

(2)  The  Alexandrian  text,  which  Doctors  Westcott 
and  Hort  begged  the  question  by  calling  the  "Neutral" 
text. 

(3)  The  Western  Text,  whose  readings  Dr.  Hort 
thought  to  be  no  readings  at  all,  but  mere  fabrications 
of  ingenious  copyists. 

I  am  a  believer  in  the  Western  text.  It  is  a  text, 
which  in  the  second  century  was  dominant  not  only 
in  the  west,  but  in  the  east,  and  in  every  clime  or 
country  where  Christianity  was  taught.  In  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries  it  was  largely,  though  not  en- 
tirely, dispossessed  in  Egypt  by  the  Alexandrian  text. 
Later  it  was  ousted  everywhere  by  the  Received  text, 
which  is  practically  the  Vulgate  text  in  a  Greek  dress. 
11 


Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort  by  reviving  the  Alexandrian 
text  of  Origen,  revived  also,  sad  to  say,  the  Alex- 
andrian heresies.  A  great  many  Arianized  readings 
first  crept  into  the  text  at  Alexandria,  and  thence 
found  their  v/ay  into  the  Vulgate;  for  the  Greek  text 
used  by  St.  Jerome  took  in  a  long  series  of  previous 
revisions  of  the  Greek  Gospels.  The  chief  merit  of 
St.  Jerome,  to  be  set  over  against  his  fondness  for  the 
novelties  of  Origen,  was  that  he  fixed  the  Gospel  text 
as  he  found  it  for  fifteen  hundred  years. 

It  is  true  that  our  Gospels,  as  far  as  we  have  them 
at  present,  can  be  traced  back  to  a  form  of  text  ap- 
proved in  Alexandria  and  in  Rome  as  long  ago  as 
382  A.D. ;  but  there  were,  as  we  now  know,  very 
important  changes  made  in  their  text  between  82  A.D. 
and  382  A.D. ;  that  is  in  the  300  years  between  their 
first  copying  and  their  being  stereotyped  by  St.  Jerome. 

What  was  the  nature  of  this  early  revision?  It 
was  a  continued  depravation  of  the  pureness  of  the 
primitive  records.  It  was  very  largely  directed  against 
the  teaching  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
teaching  of  the  Personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which 
we  find  clearly  stated  in  the  earliest  Western  manu- 
scripts, but  which  largely  disappear  from  the  man- 
scripts  of  Origen  and  of  the  Vulgate,  and  from  all 
Greek  MSS.  from  the  fourth  century  onwards. 

That  momentous  300  years  saw  many  wounds  in- 
flicted upon  the  sacred  body  of  Holy  Scripture;  and 
I  have  found  at  least  twenty  verses  in  the  New  Testa- 


12 


ment  in  Western  manuscripts,  which  refer  to  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  which  have  been  altogether  expunged  by 
the  early  Egyptian  revisers.  Again,  with  regard  to 
the  Deity  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  the  earliest  West- 
ern manuscripts  show  that  this  was  once  taught  with 
much  clearness  in  the  Gospels  and  in  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul  and  in  the  Revelation  of  St.  John.  This 
clarity  of  teaching,  however,  was,  darkened  in  these 
three  hundred  years,  when  men  treated  the  Scriptures 
with  a  more  or  less  free  hand ;  when  men  like  Marcion 
in  the  second  century  accepted  only  the  Gospel  of  St. 
Luke  and  mutilated  it  to  suit  their  own  doctrinal 
prepossessions ;  when  Cerinthus,  an  Egyptian,  even  in 
the  first  century  declared  that  Jesus  was  born  by 
human  generation,  and  so  shocked  the  Apostle  St. 
John  that  he  rushed  from  a  public  bath  at  Ephesus, 
which  he  had  entered,  on  being  told  that  the  heretic 
Cerinthus  was  also  in  the  room. 

It  is  not  a  new  teaching  to  deny  the  virgin  birth  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  not  a  new  teaching  to  declare  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  merely  an  influence  and  not  a  Per- 
sonality. These  declarations  were  made  in  the  first 
century  by  Cerinthus,  and  in  the  second  century  by 
Celsus,  the  Epicurean  philosopher;  and  in  the  second 
century,  too,  by  Marcion,  the  Scripture  mutilator,  who 
was  a  native  of  Pontus  in  Asia  Minor,  but  who  found 
his  way  later  to  Rome. 

So  therefore,  when  we  think  that  we  have  formu- 
lated something  new  in  our  modern  denials  of  the 


13 


essentials  of  the  Christian  faith,  we  are  really  turning 
back  to  what  was  put  forth  in  the  first  and  second 
and  third  centuries  by  the  philosophers  and  pseudo- 
scientists  of  the  day,  who  sought  to  overturn  and  over- 
throw what  was  distinctive  in  the  Christian  teaching. 

We  have  clearly  in  our  Gospel  texts  the  marks  of 
the  Church's  battles  in  the  past.  In  the  Gospel  of 
St.  Mark  the  first  verse  begins,  "The  beginning  of 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  In  one 
ancient  Latin  manuscript,  fourteen  hundred  years  old, 
in  the  British  Museum  Harley  Collection,  that  verse 
reads,  "The  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Son  of 
God,"  omitting  the  words,  "Jesus  Christ."  In  the 
Codex  Sinaiticus,  discovered  by  Dr.  Tischendorf  in 
1859,  that  verse  reads,  "The  beginning  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,"  omitting  the  words,  "Son  of  God." 

Dr.  Tischendorf  declared  that  this  omission  showed 
the  extreme  value  of  the  Codex  Sinaiticus.  He 
pointed  out  that  Origen  five  times  quoted  the  text 
in  the  way  that  it  was  found  in  the  Codex  Sinaiticus. 
He  pointed  out  further  that  St.  Jerome,  who  follows 
Origen,  quoted  it  twice  as  Origen  did.  And  there- 
fore, says  Dr.  Tischendorf,  "Supported  by  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Fathers,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
Codex  Sinaiticus  contains  the  primitive  text,  although 
even  by  the  time  of  Irenaeus  [A.D.  180]  men  already 
read  the  text  with  the  noble  addition  put  in,  but  the 
added  words,  The  Son  of  God,'  seem  to  me  in  this 
connection  out  of  place.     It  would  be  very  foolish, 


14 


and  opposed  to  the  whole  history  of  the  sacred  text, 
to  argue  that  the  words  were  removed  by  non-believ- 
ers rather  than  inserted  by  an  officious  and  mistaken 
piety." 

"It  would  be,"  says  Dr.  Tischendorf,  "opposed  to 
the  whole  history  of  the  sacred  text  to  argue  that 
the  words  were  removed  by  non-believers  rather  than 
inserted  by  an  officious  and  mistaken  piety."  But  in 
this  controversy  my  study  of  Western  manuscripts 
for  the  last  eighteen  years  has  shown  me  more  than 
one  hundred  cases  in  which  letters  and  words  in 
Western  manuscripts  as  first  written  have  been  al- 
tered— always  altered  in  one  direction,  to  take  away 
from  the  Deity  of  Christ,  and  never  in  one  single 
instance  altered  so  as  to  bring  out  more  clearly  the 
witness  of  the  Apostles  to  the  Deity  of  Christ;  and, 
therefore,  I  am  convinced  that  the  omission  by  the 
Codex  Sinaiticus  is  only  another  evidence  of  the  early 
work  of  the  unbeliever  and  the  heretic  in  depraving 
the  true  copies  of  Holy  Scripture. 

I  have  recently  published  as  Sacred  Latin  Texts: 
No.  Ill,  a  manuscript  copied  at  Armagh  in  Ireland, 
of  the  Four  Gospels,  and  this  manuscript  gives  us  in 
many  of  its  readings  the  Western  text,  or  Old-Latin 
text;  and  I  wish  to  give  you  from  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John  a  few  verses  from  this  ancient  Western  manu- 
script. Instead  of  "In  Him  was  life" —  a  colourless 
saying — which  is  found  in  our  Bibles,  this  manu- 
script has  "In  Him  was  the  life  of  God  which  is 


15 


the  light  of  men,"  "In  Him  was  life  and  the  life  was 
the  light  of  men"  is  our  Bible.  "In  Him  was  the 
life  of  God  which  is  the  light  of  men"  is  the  Western 
reading. 

Again,  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  St.  John,  the  Jews 
asked  our  Lord,  "If  Thou  art  Christ  tell  us  plainly"; 
and  He  answers,  "I  have  told  you  already  and  ye 
believe  not."  But  the  Armagh  manuscript  has  a  re- 
markable reading  and  tells  us  that  the  question  was, 
"If  Thou  art  God  ["God"  instead  of  "Christ"]  tell 
us  plainly";  to  which  our  Lord  answers,  "I  have  told 
you  already  and  ye  believe  not."  It  is  impossible 
that  DEUS  could  have  been  miscopied  for  CHRISTUS. 
There  is  here  a  deliberate  alteration.  DEUS  is  under, 
is  the  lower  reading.  It  has  been  erased  and  CHRIS- 
TUS has  been  placed  on  the  top.  Now,  it  is  with 
this  science  of  textual  criticism  as  with  geology,  the 
lower  strata  are  the  more  ancient  strata,  and  the 
upper  strata  are  those  of  later  formation. 

The  Codex  Bezae  has  in  the  main  a  second  century 
text  with  many  Western  readings,  and  I  wish  to  give 
you  just  one  or  two  of  the  confirmations  of  my  thesis 
to  be  found  in  the  Codex  Bezae.  In  the  beginning  of 
St.  Mark's  Gospel  our  Bible  reads,  "Make  straight 
His  path"  or  "His  paths."  The  Codex  Bezae  reads, 
"Make  straight  the  paths  of  our  God."  And  the 
Codex  Bezae  is  supported  by  at  least  eight  Old-Latin 
manuscripts,  which  I  myself  have  seen  and  copied. 

Again,  in  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  where  St.   Paul 


16 


heals  the  cripple  at  Lystra,  the  Greek  manuscripts 
tell  us  that  St.  Paul  said,  "Rise  up  and  walk,"  but 
Codex  Bezae  with  the  Old-Latin  and  Western  manu- 
scripts tells  us  that  St.  Paul  said,  "In  the  name  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  I  bid  thee  rise  up  and  walk." 

In  the  story  of  the  baptism  of  the  Ethiopian  by 
St.  Philip,  the  Western  text  tells  us  that  the  Ethi- 
opian made  a  confession,  "I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  Son  of  God,"  and  thereupon  was  baptized. 
The  Greek  text,  which  comes  from  Alexandria,  omits 
this  confession  altogether,  but  the  confession  stands 
untampered  with  in  many  non-Alexandrian  Greek 
manuscripts  and  in  the  Western  text.  Codex  Bezae 
is  unfortunately  mutilated  in  this  chapter. 

I  hope  that  you  are  gathering  from  this  what  I 
wish  you  to  gather,  that  there  was  from  the  begin- 
ning revision  of  the  Gospels.  That  revision,  always 
operant,  detracted  one  by  one  vital  elements  from  the 
teaching  of  the  Apostles,  and  from  the  teaching  of 
the  primitive  Christians.  The  revision  sought  to 
bring  down  the  Christian  revelation  to  the  level  of 
the  non-supernatural  philosophical  culture  of  the  day ; 
and  one  of  the  most  powerful  means  that  these 
non-believers  had — and  many  non-believers  were  then 
as  now  in  high  positions  in  the  Church — one  of  the 
most  powerful  means  that  these  non-believers  had 
was  the  falsification  of  the  records  of  the  evangelists. 
Scriptioni  Christum  Deum  neganti  praestat  adnunt- 
ians  is  thus  a  valuable  canon  in  our  search  for  the 
primitive  text. 

17 


For  Tertullian  again  and  again  tells  us  that  the 
heretics  falsified  the  Scriptures.  Irenaeus,  too,  at  the 
end  of  one  of  his  works,  puts  in  a  solemn  adjuration 
that  the  man  who  copied  his  manuscript  was  to  copy- 
it  faithfully,  or  else  he  would  be  judged  by  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  at  His  coming.  And  all  the  early  Fa- 
thers constantly  tell  us  how  unbelievers  like  Marcion 
to  establish  their  own  doctrines  resorted  to  depraving 
and  mutilating  the  sacred  text. 

Thus  it  has  come  about,  that,  in  many  texts  where 
we  should  expect  a  clear  utterance  concerning  such 
an  important  question  as  to  the  nature  of  Jesus 
Christ,  we  find  a  cloudy  and  an  ambiguous  utterance 
that  is  not  the  work  of  the  original  evangelists,  but 
of  which  we  can  only  say,  "An  enemy  hath  done 
this." 

I  do  not  wish  you  to  conclude  that  my  manuscript 
researches  have  brought  the  great  cardinal  facts  of 
the  Gospel  into  any  doubt.  The  miracles  all  stand. 
Not  one  has  been  added ;  and  not  one  has,  to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  been  altered.  The  parables  stand. 
A  few  of  them  have  been  here  and  there  changed; 
but  their  number  has  not  been  lessened  nor  added 
to.  It  is  the  doctrinal  statements ;  it  is  the  statements 
which  concern  the  divinity  of  Christ,  the  divinity  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  the  office  of  the  Church,  eternal  pun- 
ishment, and  the  everlasting  mercy  of  God — it  is  on 
these  vital  issues  that  we  find  there  has  been  an 
almost  uniform  rehandling  of  the  primitive  words 
of  the  Apostles. 

18 


And  so  we  are  brought  to  this  point,  that  whereas 
we  have  the  facts,  the  great  facts,  which  are  pro- 
nounced in  the  Apostles'  creed,  the  great  facts  which 
are  so  amply  attested  in  the  MSS.,  unshaken,  and, 
thank  God,  unshakable — the  virgin  birth  of  Christ, 
the  miracles  that  He  wrought,  His  resurrection  and 
the  sending  forth  of  the  Holy  Spirit — whereas  those 
facts  are  established,  doubt  has  been  thrown,  very 
serious  doubt  has  been  thrown,  upon  the  validity  of 
certain  verses  which  have  been  used  as  foundation 
texts  on  which  to  build  vast  ecclesiastical  structures 
that  have  overtopped  and  finally  hidden  from  view 
the  original  Gospel,  which  was  proclaimed  to  be  and 
is,  "Good  tidings  of  great  joy  for  all  people." 

One  verse,  in  conclusion  to  illustrate  this.  Our 
Lord  once  wistfully  and  earnestly  asked  His  disciples, 
"Who  do  men  say  that  I  am?"  One  of  them  replied, 
"Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God." 
And  Christ  replied,  "Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar- 
jona,  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto 
thee,  but  My  Father  Which  is  in  heaven";  and  He 
continued  according  to  our  Bible,  "And  I  say  unto 
thee.  Thou  art  Peter,  and  on  this  rock  I  will  build 
My  church,  and  the  gates  of  Hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  it."  In  this  connection  I  was  happy  enough 
only  six  months  ago  to  make  in  this  country  a  dis- 
covery, which  I  shall  narrate  in  some  detail  owing 
to  its  great  interest.  I  was  working  all  alone  last 
June  in  the  library  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 


19 


at  Ann  Arbor,  where  I  spent  the  summer  in  decipher- 
ing a  Spanish  manuscript,  loaned  to  me  by  the  heirs 
of  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan  of  New  York.  This  Spanish 
manuscript  contains  the  work  of  a  Spanish  presbyter 
called  Beatus,  who  lived  in  the  eighth  century.  It 
was  acquired  in  October,  1910,  in  London  by  the 
librarian  of  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan  for  the  Morgan 
library.  The  vendor,  a  Spaniard,  said  he  had  pur- 
chased it  from  the  convent  of  San  Clemente,  Toledo, 
where  tradition  said  it  was  given  to  the  convent  by 
King  Alfonzo  VI  (1030-1109).  A  very  large  sum  was 
asked  and  paid  for  the  manuscript,  owing  to  its  richly 
colored  miniatures  (numbering  an  hundred  and  ten) 
being  in  an  almost  perfect  state  of  preservation.  It 
is  a  large  folio  containing  184  leaves  of  thick  vellum, 
each  leaf  measuring  21  inches  by  14  inches.  The  bind- 
ing is  elaborate  Spanish  work  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. Besides  the  Apocalypse,  the  manuscript  con- 
tains the  Book  of  Daniel  with  a  commentary.  The 
manuscript  is  complete  except  for  the  loss  of  three 
leaves.  It  has  two  perfect  postscripts,  one  by  the 
scribe  Emeterius,  written  970  A.D.,  and  one  by  the 
chief  of  the  Vulgate  correctors  in  1220  A.D.  By 
reason  of  its  two  postscripts  the  manuscript  is  an 
exact  landmark  of  the  highest  value,  not  only  to  the 
textual  student,  but  also  the  student  of  early  Spanish 
art.  Although  copied  in  the  tenth  century,  it  has 
in  the  main  a  second  century  Western  text,  antedating 
both  Origen  and  the  Vulgate. 


20 


While  at  work  on  this  manuscript,  I  saw  that  the 
remarkable  words  to  St.  Peter  as  we  know  them,  had 
been  written  over  some  other  erased  words ;  and  after 
patient  search  I  discovered  v/hat  those  erased  words 
were,  and  they  were  these :  "I  say  unto  thee  upon  this 
rock" — omitting  "Thou  art  Peter" — "Upon  this  rock 
shall  be  built  by  the  Holy  Spirit  His  disciples."  There 
is  no  mention  accordingly  in  this  Spanish  text  of  St. 
Peter,  or  of  the  Church,  or  of  Hell. 

I  say  that  such  a  discovery  as  this  is  an  eye-opener. 
It  makes  one  feel,  it  makes  one  believe,  that  if  it  was 
possible  to  get  into  the  New  Testament  such  a  strong 
blast  as  this  on  behalf  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  possible  to  get  it  accepted  textually 
so  widely,  then  we  have  not  yet  come  to  the  end  of 
the  revisions  that  may  have  found  their  way  into 
our  Gospels,  nor  have  we  come  to  the  day  when  we 
can  say  that  further  search  for  the  original  words 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  not  necessary. 

Dr.  Buttz:  I  am  sure  I  express  the  gratitude  of 
us  all  to  Dr.  Buchanan  for  his  very  instructive  and 
inspiring  lecture.  It  will  certainly  awaken  a  new 
interest  among  all  of  us  in  this  Seminary  in  this  sub- 
ject, which  is  so  important.  It  is  a  great  privilege 
we  have  enjoyed  today,  that  of  having  an  expert  in 
the  great  department  of  textual  criticism  present  to 
us  the  results  of  his  investigations.  It  shows  us  on 
how  strong  a  foundation  our  Christian  faith  is  built. 
I  would  ask  Dr.  Sitterly  to  bestow  the  benediction. 


21 


Dr.  Charles  F.  Sitterly:  The  Grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  blessing  of  God,  our  Heavenly 
Father,  and  the  comfort  of  the  Holy  Ghost  be  with 
us  all  for  ever.    Amen. 


22 


DATE  DUE 

"'"^^m^. 

sr:' 

CAVLORO 

n 


BS2385.B896 

The  early  revisers  of  the  Gospel; 

imii"M,^'°"  ^'i^o'osical  Seminary-Speer  Lil 


1    1012  00012  7920     ' 


^Vi*"^^ 


^a 


